FC Pyunik - History

History

Founded in 1992, Pyunik (Armenian for "Phoenix") has won a record 12 Armenian Championships, along with 4 Armenian Cups, and 6 Armenian Supercups. The club is considered in Armenia as one of the most popular Armenian football clubs since the establishment of the Armenian Premier League in 1992. It was founded as Homenetmen Yerevan, and kept that name until the 1995–96 season, when it was renamed as Pyunik. After winning the title twice as FC Pyunik, troubles began as the club started to financially struggle, and eventually disbanded in 1999.

Pyunik's new era began in 2001, when Pyunik absorbed FC Armenikum and automatically gained promotion to the Armenian Premier League without playing a single game in the lower leagues. The club's owner, wealthy Armenian businessman Ruben Hayrapetyan, took a much more serious approach to the club and brought star players such as Artavazd Karamyan and Arman Karamyan from other Armenian clubs. FC Pyunik was not satisfied with what it already had, and improved the team more by bringing some foreign managers and players from Mali, Cameroon, Argentina and later from Romania. These improvements returned quick results, and Pyunik won the Armenian title the same year and the Armenian Cup in 2002. Later, for the first time in independent Armenian club history an Armenian club advanced to the second round in the Champions League. Afterwards, the club won the Armenian Premier League title ten times in a row.